John Fitz

The Gift of Time

Do not go gentle unto that good night;/Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

—Dylan Thomas

 

Most of you are pretty good writers—when you want to be. However, just as many of you live in a land of shortcuts and laziness. You are myopically content with your grades—as if that is all you will need to remember in an unwizened old age. I can say it a million times–and I probably already have—that writing well is as much craft and sport and practice as anything—but I wonder if it will fall on ears that hear. Writing well is not a skill we are born with; it is not a gift bestowed upon a chosen few, and it has surprisingly little to do with the grades you get in English class. It has to do with you and how willing you are to put in the effort to become a better writer. You already have the motivation within you. You simply have to write with the same focus and effort that you put into your favorite sports, hobbies, or other pursuits that captures your heart and mind and soul and being, and in doing so you may, perhaps, leave behind your own testament to eternity, a beacon on a rocky shore, a balm in an uneasy time—an unexpected gift at an unexpected time—words wrought from the iron of experience and nurtured from the seed of speculation.

 

Or lives are full of the parables that can be recreated in words and woven into stories, songs, poems, prayers, and reflections that not only give our own lives meaning, but also give meaning to the lives of our readers. What self-respecting woodworker, when given a warehouse full of tools and lumber and time, would be content with building a hatrack? At some point we will be nothing but memory, and we will be remembered for what we did and said and built, and, sadly, for what we didn't do, and didn't say, and didn't build—and though it is our dreams that lay the foundations of accomplishment, we are seldom remembered for anything not felt or seen or heard. Words are felt and seen and heard. I hope that your own reading and writing makes this even more true.

 

Why give up when you can give a damn? Any one of us at anytime can improve the nick of time because we are are all continually gifted by the grace of unfolding hours. All the same, most of us are too lazy to even welcome the sunrise because all we remember is the dissipation of the night. We wake with the same drunkenness as we lived the night before. We start the day two steps behind, and we never really catch up with our potential. At the end of the day people point at the "Ben" brothers and say, "There goes Woulda', Coulda', and Shoulda'." We remember vapid and insipid TV with stunning alacrity, but can't remember the last poem we read or the last line of a good book we put down.We are busy and bored in equal measure: we are peeved when some obligation robs us of an hour of precious time, and we fidget an hour away that is given to us.

 

We don't look in the mirror and see our real selves. We barely glance at our potential but stare incessantly at our imperfections.

 

We don't try because we might fail.

 

We don't really believe that anything worth succeeding in is worth failing in, but it is.

 

Make something real and lasting. Put your thoughts into words. Rage against the dying of the light.

 

Fitz's Top Ten Comma Rules & Review

Sorry: This is the correct version!

Below are the comma rules I use with my 8th grade English class. It is a flash video, so you might have to update Flash on your computer.

If you can master comma usage, you are probably most of the way to writing grammatically correct sentences because misuse (including omitting and overuse) of commas is the most common mistake in writing. The video includes a comma test that will help you assess how well you understand comma usage. 

Have fun!

Download Fitz's Top Ten Comma Rules Review

Jay's Remembrance

    These are the words that I spoke yesterday at Jay's memorial service. It was a beautiful service with two auditoriums filled beyond capacity with Jay's family and friends.  I was honored to be a part of an afternoon spent remembering one of the best guys to ever walk this earth.

     Sometimes words pale beside the greatness of a person—especially someone as great, as kind, and as memorable as the man we know as Jay, Sergei, Serg, or Mr. Samoylenko. The strands of his magnanimous life reach into the hearts of all of us—so much so that I fear my own words can only speak to a limited view of the man you know and love so dearly. I grieve as a friend and colleague, and as hollow as I feel, I can only imagine the crushing sense of loss to Seija and Lisa who mourn a father and husband—for it is Lisa and Seija who empowered and graced the actions and gestures of Jay's life; and to Amalia and Constantine, who lost a son as real and faithful as any the world has seen; and his stepparents Steve and Karen who embraced Jay into the renewed lives of their families; and to Marina who lost a dear brother, a confidant, and sometimes, I’m sure, a savior; and to his nephews Chris and Allie, and niece, Molly, who remember an uncle would always be there to help and guide them through the steady joys and inexplicable vagaries of life, and to Aunt Irene and cousin Alex and the rest of Jay’s extended family who complete the circle of relatives gathered today to remember and celebrate Jay’s life.

     The rest of us are Jay’s friends—a loyal and motley crew of students, teachers, carpenters, tutors, farmhands, academics and anti-academics, bikers, business men and women, store clerks, woodworkers, lumberman, mathematicians, townies and assorted other high and low life characters who were enriched, enlivened, embraced, and accepted for who and what we are (and often were) through the deeply egalitarian nature of Jay’s abiding acceptance of the world, the people, and the community closest to him.  

     I know that many of us feel robbed by time and fate because we reaped a greater share of Jay’s help and guidance than we have had the time to repay in kind; for though Jay was truly a self made man, he never tried to make his life his own; he made our lives a part of his life, and it is there where all of us—family and friends—share the expansiveness of his love and devotion to always being there when we needed him; and in the simple act of receiving his gift of time, talents, and presence we share a common bond during a hard and uncommon time. 

     However the news of Jay’s death came to each of you, I’m sure it came hard, unexpected—and beyond comprehension. Out of habit, I tried to put words around what had happened, but for several days everything seemed beyond putting words on a page; instead, I relied upon and leaned upon the shoulders of friends.  These words are a mix of starts and stops that I can only hope somehow captures a slice of the fullness of Jay.  So many of you know Jay in different, but equally compelling ways. But, I am sure that Jay—the man who spent at least three struggling and laborious hours on each individual advisor letter or recommendation—must be smiling at my own struggles to find and contain the myriad elliptical orbits of his many pursuits and passions and friendships.

     Everyday, I have tried to squeeze out some words to give any kind of solace, meaning, or context to what happened to Jay. I answered the million questions from my own kids about the kind and gentle man who won't be by for dinner like he has some many times before—and Pipo (who worships the ground Jay walks on) struggling to add one more thought and make one more connection, exclaims, “Man, now I will never be able to get math!”  Sometimes I just sit and can’t think, but I also smile when I remember all the times Jay and I plotted and planned our next twenty years together in the woodshop: half English/half shop—half math/half shop; you show up for practice today/I’ll show up tomorrow—and always figuring out ways to find enough jobs on the side to make enough money to get our kids through school, make tractor payments and house payments and truck payments and unexpected everything payments—and still get to be school teachers in this school we both love, with these students we both love, and with the faculty we “mostly” love—but we’d never, ever, let the system fool us; though it probably did fool Jay without even trying, for though Jay was easily the most brilliant person I knew, he was also a gentle and loving saint who accepted the good and bad, and hardship and heaven, with equal magnanimity. It seemed all the same to him to repair the barn roof on a freezing and windy wintry day then drive 200 miles to be with a sick friend in Vermont as it was to get on his beloved bike and make a quick loop around Concord and back to the farm.

    In this way, Jay always did what needed to be done, but he also had his “to do lists”—and to prove it he had a daily planner so filled it looked like the rough draft of Thoreau’s journal. I have to laugh at the sheer audacity of his approach to the number of hours in a given day: Jay did not simply find the time to do things; he seemed to create time out of some primordial substance—some rare element that only he could find and work his magic alchemy: On any given day he would wake early and do whatever chores needed to be done on a farm full of horses; he’d come to school and teach math and shop classes; sneak home at lunch to help Lisa unload some 8000 tons of hay; come back to school and drive his beloved and raucous JV tennis team or cross country team to a faraway school that Star somehow felt didn’t need an airline to reach; he’d then come back to school and make it over to the Lynn’s or the Crowley’s or the Reed’s, or Billings, or Grants, or Antonitis’s or all of them and half of CCHS to tutor in math—and life; then maybe come by our house for a plate of spaghetti and a couple of stories; and then make it to Concord Academy to pick up Seija who would be staying late to study at her school, and finally back home to Lisa and the warmth of the family and farmhouse he loved so dearly.  

    As diligent as he was about the details of his obligations to, and the respect he had for, community and tradition, he also had his own eccentric slant on things—a slant that illumined an insightful and iconoclastic thoughtfulness about everything life could put in a person’s way. Jay would start so many conversations by resting his chin in his palm, begin nodding slowly and say, “What I can’t figure out is….” But then he would slowly work out a meticulous solution to a particular problem of life with the same ease that he would lead kids through the elegant mathematical formulas scribbled on his whiteboard—and somehow he fooled you into thinking that it was you who figured out the problem, and he just happened to be there; for Jay was a teacher who taught kids, not classes; he was a friend who came to you, not the party, but above all, he was a husband and father whose every motion of the day was meant to help Lisa and Seija, not himself.

    And Seija—I don’t need to tell you about the awesomeness of your dad; I can only say to you and show you what I have heard and seen from him. Every day I would make my way over to the shop to teach my fourth grade shop class, and I would plop myself down on the couch in your dad’s office and plead with the crowds of over-eager boys lugging planks of pine and poplar, tape measures and dangerously sharp hand saws to your dad’s office door, and I would plead, “Can’t you just give me my Mr. Samoylenko time?”  Because there has always been something soothing and calming about simply hanging out with your dad. Usually I’d start by telling him my latest joke, and he’d always laugh—just because it was a joke, not because he got it, for as I’m sure you’d agree, with his utter lack of guile or deceit, your dad could never tell a joke for the life of him.

    And as I sat there, he would rearrange your picture on his desk and weave you into the narrative of his day:

    And I have never heard a father tell so many stories about a daughter, or worry about every detail of a daughter’s life, or to put so much faith in a daughter’s ability to amaze, for he not only loved you and adored you, but he admired everything about you—and it was so much more than stubborn fatherly pride; it was an awe of everything you are and everything you have accomplished—and everything you will be. Your dad may be a guiding polestar, but you are his universe—and that will never ever change. 

    And Lisa—Jay will always be the husband and friend that only you knew in his completeness, and as with all other reports of husbands to their wives I should probably measure my heaping of his praises with other healthy doses of reality, but I know, even more than his love and commitment to you, was his faith in you to get through all the challenges of raising and keeping a family, keeping a farm, and keeping it all together, most especially in this most trying of years. I remember coming in the shop one morning right after your leg was broken in a riding accident, and Jay was shaking his head: “Oh, goodness gracious, [this being the coarsest language Jay would ever use] there is no way Lisa is going to stay in the house and rest her leg the way she should.” Later, after going home to check on you, he came back into the shop shaking his head again and laughing in his understated way: “Lisa was in the barn teaching a lesson.” He said it with such a natural and affectionate pride in your spunk and determination not to be sidelined when there was work to be done or challenges to be met.  Working together you built an amazing and beautiful farm, and in the same way you, cultivated, nurtured, and sustained  an amazing and beautiful family.

      During the past week and a half, I have had so many friends say, “Though I didn’t know Jay well, he was just so comfortable to be with and talk to and be around.” And, even if you feel like you did not know him well, he knew you. It doesn't matter if he only taught you in one class or coached you in one sport, or stood with you around the horse ring, or built that horse ring with you, or guided you through quadratic equations, Jay knew you—he knew the deep and intricate subtleties of what made you be you. He also had a gift for remembrance and a love for telling stories about life and friends (often some very funny stories about his friends) and so it is an even larger myth that we shouldn't laugh and tell our own stories today—for, more than anybody, Jay would not want somberness to rule over this time together—though neither would he ever want to be the center of attention and have stories told about him that he couldn’t deny, refute or challenge with his laconic and self-deprecating wit, but it is hard for me—and I am sure for you—not to remember this really fun, interesting, and engaging guy who somehow managed to make every day with him a better day for us.

    With every story told there are a hundred unspoken. I wish we had the time to tell them all. We will live better and more perfect lives if we remember Jay not simply as an amazing man, but as a parable to guide the actions of our own lives; for out of the tears, the hurt, the anger, the confusion, and utter sense of loss, Jay will always rise as a beacon and inspiration as a good person and good friend who lived a good life for good reasons. Sometimes the world takes one to teach many, and that is too true right now, so I know I will always be a better person because of Jay. How can I not? How can we not? 

    Jay was a seed planted in our lives, and it is up to us now to bear the fruit of Jay's life into eternity.

    Thank you for listening; thank you Lisa and Seija, and thank you Jay.

~Fitz

7/31/2011

 

 

Poetry

    Don't let anyone tell you what makes a poem. Like a good meal, you know when you taste it. If I were talking to a farmer friend of mine and he said, "Ya know Fitz, so much depends upon a red wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater beside the white chickens," I might simply respond, "Yep, good thing you have a red wheelbarrow!" But, if I saw these same words framed in a poetic structure, I would be astonished at the power of the words:

so much depends 
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

    I read this poem by William Carlos Williams, and I don't think of it as a tribute to wheelbarrows as much as it makes me wonder about the importance of importance and the dependence and interdependence of our lives, and so my mind drifts into the world of poetry that somehow transcends and reinvigorates common thought. I now wonder why three simple images--none of which are all that interesting--prefaced by the simple statement, somehow become transformed into something powerful when written as a poem. 

    Sometimes a poem transforms a simple story into a powerful emotional and intellectual experience. The poem "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening," by Robert Frost, is one such poem. The story of the poem is not interesting in the slightest: A guy is driving his horse drawn wagon or sleigh through the woods on a snowy night, and he stops for a bit but then realizes he has promises to keep--and many miles left on his journey, and so he needs to get going again; however, Frost tells this story as a highly structured poem, and it becomes vivid, evocative, and haunting enough to become one of the most admired poems in the English language--and certainly one of my favorite poems:

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

    I don't need anyone to analyze or tell me why I love this poem: I simply do! All I really know is that the older I get, the more this poem speaks to me, and so I keep returning to this poem as if it is an actual physical place that I need and want to revisit time and time again. I don't think about the poem; I just let it make me think....

    For all the poems I love, there are hundreds that I have read and discarded because they did not speak to me in a powerful way, or move me, or make me want to return to their words. This does not mean they are bad poems. It probably means I was not ready for them, or I was lazy when I read them because reading poetry is an exercise, not an amusement. By being attentive when you read a poem, you become a better reader, a deeper thinker, and a better writer. You should read poetry like you are flying a plane for the first time, or climbing a precarious tree on a windy day; if you lose your concentration, you lose--you lose the poem!

    For this week's writing prompt, share a poem with us that you like and think is a really good poem. If you can't think of any poems, ask your parents or grandparents what their favorite poems are and see if those poems "speak" to you, too. Copy the poem (or poems if you wish) into your blog and write a paragraph or two about who wrote the poem, how you found the poem, and why you like the poem. If you want to go one step further, share with us a poem that you wrote. 

    And have a great week!

~fitz

 

Jay Samoylenko

    Everyday since Monday night, I have been trying to squeeze some words that give any kind of solace, meaning, or context to Jay's (Mr. Samoylenko's) disappearance and drowning. I answer the million questions from my own kids about the fun and gentle man who won't be by for dinner any more like he has some many times before. I call friends and we talk in endless circles and we all feel better for a while. Down here at the cape I sit and stare at the surf until I feel Denise's hand in mine and we walk back to be with the kids. Sometimes I just start crying, and sometimes I smile when I think of all the times he and I plotted and planned our next twenty years together in the woodshop, making enough money on the side to support our families, and never, ever, letting the system fool us--though it probably did so without even trying, for though Jay was easily the most brilliant person I knew, he was also a a gentle and loving saint who accepted hardship and heaven with equal magnanimity. He was a teacher who taught kids, not classes; he was a friend who came to you, not the party, and he was a husband and father whose every motion of the day was meant to help Lisa and Seija, not himself.

     I don't just miss Jay; I grieve for him in an almost inconsolable way.  If I have learned anything from life, it is the myth of being strong when your heart is heavy and sad.  Even if you feel like you did not know know him well, he knew you. It doesn't matter if he only taught you in one class or coached you in one sport, or talked with you once around the butcher block in our kitchen, or sat with you through a long and semi-absurd professional day. Jay had a gift for remembrance and a love for telling stories about life and stories about you (often some very funny stories about you), and so It is an even larger myth that we shouldn't laugh and tell stories about Jay-- as if somberness should rule over the joy of remembering a really fun and vivid guy. 

     From out of the tears, the hurt, the anger, the confusion and utter sense of senseless loss, Jay will always rise as a beacon and inspiration as a good person and good friend who lived a good life for good reasons. I am crying now and maybe you are, too, but I know I will always be a better person because of Jay. How can I not? He was a seed planted in our lives, and it is up to us now to bear the fruit of Jay's shortened life into eternity.

 

 

Three Haiku Techniques

Here is this weeks writing prompt. It is our first "poetry" prompt. All of my students at school will vouch that the quickest way to a good grade from me is to write lots of poetry in their blogs. I can't say that is true, but what I can say is true is "Great writers don't always make for good poets; but good poets always make for great writers!" So try out this prompt. It's pretty easy, and (I think) pretty fun.

The prompts are not required, but they are helpful if you want to develop your skills as a writer. What I would love to see, though, is more commenting on each other's blogs. It's not as much fun if your work really hard on a writing piece and Ben or I are the only ones to leave a comment. So take a few minutes and read what your blogmates are writing, and leave a comment that is nice and supportive of his or her efforts as a writer.

 

Writing Haiku

    Imagine if at every meal you were blindfolded before you started eating.  Without being able to "see" what you are about to eat might make you more hesitant (to say the least) whenever reach for your first mouthful of food. As humans we are sensory creatures, and we like using our senses. Being able to see, touch, taste, feel, and hear gives us a multi-dimensional way to experience and understand the world around us. A good writer uses techniques that helps his or her readers heighten those senses when reading their writing pieces. Helping your readers to "see" in their own minds what you are creating in your mind is an essential tool of the writer.  Once your readers can see what you are writing, then you can add your thoughts to help further tell and expand the story. 

    Using images and actions to create a vivid and visual experience for your reader is a powerful method for engaging and keeping your audience interested in what you are writing--and that has to be the primary goal of all writers. The most effective images and actions are created using specific nouns and verbs (and very rarely adjectives--unless they are needed and specific). I like teaching haiku as a way to practice this basic skill of writing because haiku not only use images and actions, they also add in a thoughtful element into each poem.

     The term haiku is derived from the word "Hai" which means "insightful,"  and the term "Ku," which means "fun." (Or something very close to that.) Haiku are poems of 20 syllables or less constructed in three lines using an images, actions, and a cutting element (usually a punctuation mark that sets up the twist)  that separates the  haiku into two sections.  This might not be the definition you know, but it is the one we will use for the haiky we create this year.  It is not a bad idea to stay close to the traditional 5-7-5 syllable scheme, but it is certainly not the end all be all of "effective haiku."   Only a pedant is going to sit there and count syllables on you.  A good haiku has neither too little or too much, and it just feels like a haiku when you read it or hear it. It makes you want to say, "Ahhhhh ku..."

     Here are my three Haiku Techniques that are time honored traditional ways to approach the writing of haiku--and it will help you with any other kind of writing, too!

Technique # 1: Image and action + cool twist: See the description below

 

In her nest of grass
The robin sleeps all day;
It must be Sunday.
     ~fitz

Technique # 2: Image on Image + Cool Twist or Thought: Juxtapose images + actions that helps us see those images in a new and interesting way:

    This is  where you use "prepositions" to place two images in relation to each other, and then you add an action that adds some kind of cool twist--as in my poem above, or this final haiku that might also go with the scene from chapter ten.
               

Outside the bombed cottage
the old soldier smiles
and flips the pancakes.
     -fitz

    Technique #3: Big to small, and small to big: This is not only a haily technique, but it is an effective way to approach any kind of writing. It goes along with one of my favorite sayings: "Give me a stone and I'll show you the universe.  Show me the universe and I'll give you a stone." The point is that whenever you are writing about a large and/or broad subject, it is important to break it down or narrow it down to something your reader can relate to an a more specific level; likewise, if your topic or subject already feels narrow, then it is important to relate your subjuct to something larger and more universal.

All that's left
of the long winter--
a mitten in the daffodils
~fitz

Here is a way to practice technique #1:

    First create a series of images and actions and make the first two lines of a "potential" haiku.

    •    Nature, and especially the seasons, is the best raw material for haiku.  Go outside and watch nature.  (Yes, move away from your computer and grab a notebook and a pencil!) Find a place where you can just sit and observe what is happening around you. Whenever you "see" something happening, write down that image and action using only nouns and verbs--and occasionally a necessary adjective, and rarely an adverb! The most common sights often make for the best haiku.

For example:   

• In her nest of grass
  The robin sleeps all day

• A single earthworm 
  Inches across the wet pavement

• Three painted monarchs
  Dance around a single flower

• Lightening flashes
  And distant rumbling

Next, take those images and actions and create a haiku by adding a short thought, question, or statement. In traditional haiku this is called the "cutting."  The cutting adds a "twist" into the poem and lets your reader experience the image and action in a new (and often profound--and sometimes funny) way.  A good way to set off this cutting is by adding a semi-colon, double dash or colon at the end of the first section. I generally use a semi-colon in place of a comma and conjunction (so, yet, and, or, nor, for, but).  I use a colon to introduce a statement or a list.  I use the double dash when I want to add a cool thought or sudden insight to complete the haiku.  Try to keep this line between four and seven syllables.

In her nest of grass
The robin sleeps all day;
It must be Sunday.
~fitz

A single earthworm 
Inches across the wet pavement:
Stop the speeding car?
~fitz

Three painted monarchs
Dance around a single flower--
Sweet waiting nectar!
~fitz

Lightening flashes
And vague distant rumbling:
Somebody's getting wet.
~fitz

    These may not be the greatest haiku in the world, but I hope you get the basic idea of what I want you to try to do.  The important part of this exercise is to practice creating images and actions using nouns and verbs and essential adjectives. By adding the cutting I want you to see that even the most common of experiences can have profound and unique meaning.

 

Here is a way to practice technique #2:

First you need to create juxtaposed images--especially if the images are "out of place"--that are usually connected with a prepositional phrase. 

For example:

• The rubber ball
  in the new snow

• A dark puddle
  on the dry street

• On a withered branch
  the black crow

Now add an action of some sort  to the beginning or the end that helps add a new dimension and twist to the images and so create a haiku:

The rubber ball
in the new snow
will soon be lost
~fitz

When will the kids find
the dark puddle
on this dry street?
~fitz

On his long grey branch
the black crow
waits all day.
~fitz

 

Here is a way to practice technique #3:

The technique of expanding or narrowing is effective in all types of writing. To use this technique to create haiku you simply need to start with either a big or a small image.

For example:

• The last oak leaf [small]

• The moon in the night sky [big]

Now expand upon or narrow down the image:

 

Yesterday's winds:
strong enough to carry away
the last oak leaf.
~fitz

The moon in the night sky
walks with me
down this wet road.
~fitz

 NOTE: Haiku never have a title, but you should note the author's name just below the haiku. Haiku work especially well when paired with a black and white photo.

 

Writing a Great Narrative Paragraph

    If some alien linguists came to earth to study how we communicate with each other, they would probably return to Alien World University and tell their scholarly alien brethren how we create and assign words to our thoughts, and then we share these words either by sound (by talking with each other) or by changing those sounds into a strange and silent written language (written words) that tries to recreate the way we humans talk with each other. Further study would show that we group our thoughts (and hence words) into blocks that we call sentences and paragraphs. Sometimes we group a series of related paragraphs together into an essay, or a speech, or a story. In short, they might say that we communicate using a trinity of expression: a sentence is a thought fully expressed; a paragraph is a thought fully explained; while an essay (or any longer writing piece) is a thought fully explored.

    The perceptive alien would notice that we humans have no difficulty speaking in sentences and paragraphs, but we sometimes have a heck of a time trying to do the same when putting our words into writing because most of us humans do not really know (or even have to care) what is and what is not a paragraph. But we should care, because a well-spoken or well-written paragraph adds detail, clarity, and beauty to even the most common thought. It is important to remember that a paragraph is always born in a single thought, and that paragraph ends with the original thought more fully developed and explained. In a way, a paragraph is like caterpillar that transforms into a butterfly. The original thought ends the same, yet different.

    How long it takes for that caterpillar to become a butterfly is up to the writer. There is no minimum length for a paragraph.  The maximum length is just before the writer drifts or shifts away from the original thought. Generally speaking, the more deep and complex the original thought, the longer a paragraph needs to be; however, if a writer is simply presenting the facts of a story (as in the news) the paragraphs are often remarkably brief--oftentimes just one or two sentences. Check out CNN or The BBC News and see how long their paragraphs are in today's news stories.  Now check out the longer lengths of the paragraphs in a recent New Yorker article about the basketball player Yao Ming. In short, a paragraph simply needs to do what you (as a writer) need it to do.

    All of this might fly in the face of those of you who have been told that a paragraph needs to be five sentences long, or have three supporting facts, or a topic sentence at the start, or it needs a quote. Really all a paragraph must do is explain, elucidate, expound, and/or explicate an idea, thought, experience, or fact.  Once that is done, after ten words or ten hundred words, it is time to end the paragraph and move on to the next one.

    One of the ironies of my life as a writer is that I have always felt that writing is an organic process that tries to recreate the voice that speaks within us; but, here I am as a writing teacher creating all these "rubrics" and "formulas" to help my students write more effectively. My hope is that the rubrics will help them any aspiring writer find and develop that inner voice that is completely and uniquely his or her own. 

     This formula for narrative paragraphs is based on the way we would naturally talk about something: we introduce what we want to talk about; we narrow it down to something specific and more focused; we offer proof that we have had the experience, feeling, or thought, and then we add some commentary or further explanation. Anything less than this, and we run the risk of sounding disjointed, confusing, and random. There are no laws for writers, nor are there really any rules aside from what teachers or employers impose, but there is an audience out there, and if confuse them, you lose them. At the very least, if you try this formula, you will write a focused and logically structured paragraph; moreover, with a little bit more effort, you can write paragraphs that ring with beauty, clarity, and resonance!

    So, here is my formula for writing a good narrative paragraph. In narrative writing we write about our own lives and thoughts and feelings, and so we write in the first person (except where noted).

Week Four Writing Prompt: Upload the narrative paragraph rubric. Download Fitz’s Narrative Paragraph Rubric  Using this paragraph rubric, write a paragraph about an experience you have had that has taught you a life lesson--a lesson that you feel will be valuable for other people to hear. When you are finished, post your paragraph on your blog, and we will all comment on your work.

Have fun! 

FITZ'S NARRATIVE PARAGRAPH FORMULA

1. BROAD THEME: Write a short declarative statement that touches on a broad theme [the theme is simply the main thought you are writing about] that all of us can relate to in some way or other.  This acts as a "hook" that will attract your reader's attention. Despite what you might wish, no one really cares about you when they read; a reader cares primarily about himself or herself. This broad theme is a theme that almost any person can relate to on some level, and hopefully it is intriguing enough to make your reader want to read on.

    For example, if you want to write about the importance of family, here is an example of a broad theme:

It is only our immediate family that gives us unconditional love.

NOTE: Because you are trying to show the universal nature of your theme, do not use the I voice in your broad theme. I did not write: It is only my family that gives me unconditional love. Omitting the I will help your reader feel that your paragraph is for them as much as for you!

2. NARROW THEME: Narrow down your theme by writing a sentence that captures how your chosen theme is used in a specific way in an experience you have had, a feeling you have felt, or a thought you want to explore. Make sure this sentence is "clear, concise and memorable" because it is what you want your readers to remember "as" they read your paragraph. Don't make it a long sentence--unless you are writing to very sophisticated readers! This is the sentence that "steers" your reader in the direction you want your paragraph to go, and in that sense, it is what your paragraph is going to be about. Many writers call this the "topic sentence."

NOTE: The broad theme and the narrow theme can be combined into one sentence by connecting the two sentences with a semi-colon or a conjunction (so, yet, and, or, nor, for, but) or you can simply leave it as two sentences.

It is our family that we turn to when there is no place left to go.

3. ONE/TWO PUNCH: Follow your topic sentence with one or two more sentences that add detail or explanation to your broad theme and narrow theme. These sentences can (and maybe should) be longer sentences.

When we are alone in the world; when nothing is going our way, we know that the door of family will always open for us and welcome us back into the arms of those people who love us without reservations.

NOTE: For dramatic effect I used two clauses starting with the word "when." Using repeating words, phrases, and clauses in your writing is called parallelism or anaphora. For whatever reason, used wisely, it helps to add more power and passion to your writing.

4. SMOKING GUN:  Since you are writing about a personal experience, chose a specific personal experience you have had that explicates, illustrates, and amplifies the theme of your paragraph. This experience is proof that you have been there and done that. It is like text support in a book review, or indisputable facts in an expository essay.

At no other time in my life was this more obvious than when I returned to my family home in Concord after a three-year's journey to the Himalayas to discover the essential truth about life. Broke, disheveled, and disenchanted, I stood on the doorstep and tentatively rapped on the door. No smile was wider than my moms; no arms were wider than my dads as they pulled me into their arms and into the living room I left so long ago.

5. HEAD & HEART: Show your reader your thoughts! Write as many more sentences as you "need" (but at least three more) to illustrate and elaborate upon whatever you introduced in your topic sentence.

It didn't matter that I left home without even telling them where I was going. It didn't matter that I had once criticized their lives as dull and meaningless, and it didn't matter that I never called and never wrote.  It only mattered that I was home again.

NOTE: Here I used parallelism again, but this time I used the same repeating structure "It didn't matter..." three times.  Writing in groups of three is called a tri-colon. It is another technique of writing that seems to work well because it captures our attention, it sounds good, and it creates a natural rhythm to our writing. (See, I just used it again:)

6. GET OUT or GO ON! This sentence either wants to close out your thoughts or, if you are writing a longer piece, transition to a potential new paragraph.

For me, it only matters that I will never turn my back on my family again because when times are tough, family is all that really matters.

    Here is the complete paragraph.  At 220 words, this is what I (and probably most English teachers) would call a "full" paragraph.  

    It is only our immediate family that gives us unconditional love. It is our family that we turn to when there is no place left to go. When we are alone in the world; when nothing is going our way, we know that the door of family will always open for us and welcome us back into the arms of those people who are love us without reservations. At no other time in my life was this more obvious than when I returned to my family home in Concord after a three-year's journey to the Himalayas to discover the essential truth about life. Broke, disheveled, and disenchanted, I stood on the doorstep and tentatively rapped on the door. No smile was wider than my moms; no arms were wider than my dads as they pulled me into their arms and into the living room I left so long ago. It didn't matter that I left home without even telling them where I was going. It didn't matter that I had once criticized their lives as dull and meaningless, and it didn't matter that I never called and never wrote.  It only mattered that I was home again. For me, it only matters that I will never turn my back on my family again because family is all that really matters.

    This paragraph might not win me a Pulitzer prize, but it does what it sets out to do, and that is the primary aim of all writing.   As with everything you write, always go back and re-read what you have written. Find three areas or sentences that you can make better. Often you can find a better topic sentence somewhere else in the paragraph. You can almost always find a more clear and effective way to write a sentence than you wrote on your first try. If you have too many short sentences, try combining sentences using conjunctions (so, yet, and, or, nor, for, but) or semi colons; likewise, if you have sentences that feel too long and confusing, try shortening the sentence into two or three sentences.

    The more you use this formula, the better you will get at writing paragraphs.  Keep at it.  Your efforts will be worth the time and effort you put into it!

Week Three: Writing a Prose Memoir

We all have people in our lives that are really important to us.  A "Memoir" is a story we tell about that person.  This week, try and write a memoir about a person in your life who is important to you. This person can be a friend, a grandparent or parent, brother or sister, or aunt or uncle--anybody whom you know well and who helps you feel special and loved, or who has helped you through a hard time in life, or who is inspired and inspiring.

There are many ways to write memoirs. Here is a simple and straightforward way to write a prose memoir. Here it is in rubric form. Click on it to upload:  Download MEMOIR RUBRIC

1st Paragraph: Set the scene. Start with a scene where you and your memoir person are doing something together. Describe everything about that scene.  End the first paragraph by telling the one thing you like most about that person.  That becomes the "theme" of your memoir.

2nd Paragraph: Say what you mean. Write about why this person is important to you. Tell us your thoughts and feelings, and describe the specific "actions" this person does for and with you that makes him or her so special. Try and write at least five sentences--more if you can write more!!! 

• There is no reason why you can't add more paragraphs in here as there must be several reasons why this person is important to you--and each reason should have its own paragraph.

3rd (or last) Paragraph: Finish it clean. Start your last paragraph by telling us why everyone should have a person like your memoir person in his or her life. End the paragraph with one short sentence that"captures" why your person is so great--and use an exclamation point at the end. For example: "Uncle Tony is the coolest guy in the whole world!"

You can do other things like add pictures or video to help add another dimension to your writing piece.

Writing a Review

One of the hardest things to do as a writing teacher is to get my students to write focused paragraphs. To help them (and me) I have created a series of rubrics to help create and organize all sorts of writing genres. One of my most popular and useful rubrics is my book review rubric. 

For this weeks writing prompt, use my rubric to write a book review about any book that you have recently read. The rubric can be uploaded by clicking here: Download Fitz’s Book Review Rubric  It is a Microsoft Word document.  After you have uploaded it to your computer, save it with a different file name. If you use a mac and need a Pages or pdf version of the rubric, please let me know, and I will send you one.

When you are finished writing your review in the Microsoft Word document, upload a picture of the cover into a new blog entry by using the insert image icon in the toolbar on the dashboard (the place where you write entries). Set the image to 300 pixels wide by clicking on Custom when you upload your picture. If you cant figure this part out, dont worry about it. Cut and paste each section of the rubric as separate paragraphs.

I know this seems like a lot of work for a book review, but believe me, it works, and once you get the hang of it, you wont need to use the rubric! I can guarantee if you use this rubric, you will receive awesome grades from your teachers whenever you write a book review. [With a little bit of tweaking, you can also use the rubric for movie and game reviews, too!]

Keep writing your regular journal entries and be sure to post comments. I know a lot of kids are off at different summer camps, but if you are around, keep writing. Nothing makes me happier than to look in the blogs and see a new entry.

If you feel like you need some more help, I am around on Thursdays. We could meet then.  Just send me an e-mail if you would like a private tutoring session.

I hope your summer is going well so far. My summer is great. I am doing a lot of writing, reading, and recuperating from my knee surgeries. 

All the best,

~Fitz

Here is an example of a good book review, written by none other than our own master blogger, Adam Jolly:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     The Odyssey is an epic story of full adventure, love, hope, suffering, and pain. Written by the famous Greek poet Homer, this 500 page poem is naturally a "classic." Although written in the times of Ancient Greece, the version being reviewed was copyrighted in 1990 when Robert Fagles did a new translation of the story.

     The story is actually in epic poem form. The author in this case, is telling a story about great, cunning Odysseus. Odysseus is a relatively old war hero who became stranded on an island after his war-ship crashed on the way home. The book starts out when Odysseus is leaving the islandof Calypso. He had been trapped for around twenty years, until Goddess Athena stands up for him. This part was a little confusing because it doesn't say how he got to the island until the middle of the book. Then he gets stranded at sea, again. He goes through all of these hardships until he finally gets found by some young ladies. They bring him back to the kingdom, and he tells them the story of all that has happened. Here he talks to the King about giant beasts, water-monsters, and Cyclops. Meanwhile, Telemachus, Odysseus' son has set off on a journey to find his dad and get rid of all the suitors from his home. Odysseus' one goal is to make it home, and Telemachus' goal is to find his dad. This is a very strong sense of fatherly love. Does Odysseus ever come home? Will the suitors ever be drove off from Odysseus' old castle?

     This book has made a different person. It has taught me to stay strong when things are hard and to persevere through even the toughest times. It also taught me how important family is. Most of us take our family for granted. For example: how many of us say, "I love you mom!" when she drops you off at Fenn each morning? I have learned to not take my family for granted when I read this book. One thing I noticed when reading this, is that you get something different out of it for each age you are. For me, I was relating myself to young Telemachus. While older people might compare themselves to Odysseus.

     No matter how old you are, you will love The Odyssey. It is a story that has endured many years for one main reason: It is a great story.

 Adam Jolly

3/7/2011

~Rating: ***** 5/5

 

Fitz's Rule # 1: Tell the Whole Story

    It's good to be a woodshop teacher as well as an English teacher. The palpable smells and sounds of sawdust and hand-saws mixes with the intense focus and energy of a pack of ten year olds trying desperately to cut along their laboriously measured and scribed lines.  After class one day, I asked them what they accomplished. They all said they worked on their toolboxes. I asked them to be more specific about what exactly they did, and they told me, "We cut wood." I asked them one more question: "Did you cut the board all the way across?" They looked at in curious disbelief: Yes—they did cut the board all the way across. Who wouldn’t?

    The English teacher in me thought that this is how we need to approach our writing. We don't have to make a tremendous project everyday, but we should, at the very least, cut a metaphorical board all the way across; we should get from the start to the finish of our thoughts, and we should follow our thinking long enough to create a complete thought—a board cut all the way through—a line finished. Whenever, wherever, and whatever you write, don't stop until you've finished cutting along the line. Make everything you write, no matter how brief, have a beginning, a middle, and an end. If you are writing a song, finish a verse; if you are writing a story, finish a scene; if you are writing in your journal, finish what you are describing or thinking. Always leave your page with some semblance of success, be it a large or small success because something in me is convinced that getting from the beginning to the end is the life-blood of a writer and a thinker. It is up to us to make the time and make it a practice to cut the board all the way across and finish what we start.

    So tell the whole story: mark your line; make your cut, and leave only the sawdust behind.

 

It's What You Make of It

       Sometimes I hate it when cliche's ring true to my own life, but it is tough to argue with the notion that our attitude towards something shapes and alters that very "thing" that we are dealing with, trying to do, or trying to nurture in our own lives. Every shift in the season rings in the opportunity to live differently, to do and try new approaches to old problems, to subtly change our attitudes and actions, or even to make a huge paradigm shift in the way we live. But if we do not seize the moment, we often lose the opportunity--and when we lose opportunity, we lose the chance of bettering ourselves. We can convince ourselves that we can try again tomorrow, but making pacts with the future is not a way to live out today. I need to wake up every day and remind myself that I teach writing because I am a writer who believes in the mystery and majesty of words and who believes that it is my duty to pass on what I know about writing to those who are interested in learning. 

        At the summer camp where we spend our summers there is a huge rope swing attached to an old maple tree that hangs like a great fishing pole from the shore of a cool and dark New Hampshire pond. Every afternoon at camp there is a shivering line of campers and counselors waiting their turn to climb the rickety wooden platform that leads to the swing. After the rope is handed to you, and after you find the courage to leap, you soon find that there is no turning back--the rope is not going to swing you back safely to the platform; and so you need to let go--in a sense, you simply "put yourself out there." It is at the moment of letting go that the show begins: for first timers it is usually a feet dragging, face-planting dose of humility, but it is also an epiphany because it is never as hard as you supposed it would be. You survived and were now part of a club of "doers" who tried and did something new, and it is a rare person that does not get right back in line intent on redeeming the day with an even better and more impressive leap. I always think to myself that writers, too, need not only to make the leap, but to get back in line for more.

        Every summer for the past eight years I have run several small writing communities for both kids and adults. The communities are built around each person having their own blog within a larger community of writers and writing what they want to write over the course of the summer. My job is that of provider, nurturer, cajoler, and provoker. I try to create a safe and supportive place for people to write at whatever level they are at, but I also try to roil them out of their comfort zones and to help each person engage writing at a higher and more engaging and attentive level. It works if we all work; it works when I care and my students care, but it falls apart as soon as one of us does not hold up our end of the bargain: if I am lazy and begin to rely on cookie cutter assignments, my students will inevitably sense an opening to produce cookie cutter responses; if I expect or accept minimal efforts I get what I deserve, and my students don't get what they deserve; likewise, if a student puts in a minimal effort, they should expect minimal growth as a writer.

        It is easy for me to say, "Write what you want to write," but it is certainly hard for new writers to do that because they don't really know what they want to write about or sometimes even how to start writing about something. If I assign writing prompts, they only work for a small percentage of people because the prompt may not even remotely spark his or her interests. So we have to meet somewhere in between. My students need to be willing to climb the tower of the metaphorical rope swing and make the leap, and I need to be there to help make them leap again, or to try a new spin move, flip, or dive, knowing that every new swing develops more confidence, more strength, and more skill; moreover, I need to continually recognize that each new writer is a unique person with a unique perspective on the world and, most importantly, a unique reason for being in the writing community.

        The beauty of our humanity is our commonality. We are inextricably bound by our common interests and uncommon empathy--what interests us invariably interests others, and what we "feel" is likewise felt by others. This should not humble us; it should energize us to share in words what we feel in our heart, and know in our heads, and wonder about in our curiosity because "words" are the currency with which we buy and sell and share our thoughts and feelings; otherwise, no one will really know who you are, where you stand, or what you believe. If you want to leave a gift to the world, let it be your words, for words will always outlast the ravages of time. The time to start creating those words is now.  There is nothing stopping you. You are as wise now as you have ever been: your life is full of experiences that have shaped who you are and taught you right from wrong and good from bad; you have tasted fruits both bitter and beautiful, and you have an opportunity before you to seize or shun. The choice is yours. The interesting (and revealing) part is that no matter what you do, you will have made a choice.

        For my students who are reading this, I want you to make the choice to begin this summer by living like a writer, and a writer is simply a person who has made the choice to make writing a part of their everyday lives and who is willing to learn the craft of writing by practicing the tips and tricks and techniques of good writers--for the writer is no different than the woodworker in his shop or the athlete on the playing field: each of them does what they know they need to do to be a better woodworker or a better athlete. I will not tell you what project to build or what sport to play, but I will teach you things that will help you build anything you want to build or to be a better athlete at any sport you choose. I have listened and learned from many teachers and writers who came before me--and I continue to do so! Now it is your job to listen, to learn, and to write. 

        But remember, it is what you make of it, and it always begins with writing. 

        So start writing. 

~Fitz

 

 

 

 

A Sonnet

The parting is the hardest part of fate—

The slow untangling knot still left unwound;

We pause as if the hour is too late

To divvy fair the treasure we have found.

Our words like fingers pointing at the moon;

Whose light reveals the shadows that you teach;

And this goodbye that seems to come too soon

The pulsing tide returns you to our reach.

With each soul you shaped the morphable clay

And lay to rest the fickle thorns of time;

You gave us all an ordinary day

Below some harsh summit we could not climb—

I’ve never asked, but I’ve wondered how and why

You somehow managed to teach frogs to fly.

(For Lorraine Ward on her retirement:
a good friend, mentor, and amazing boss) 

Father’s Day

Somehow I managed to get six kids to clean the house tonight simply by asking them. No complaints: They broke ranks and somehow figured out what needed to be done:  EJ is washing the dishes; Pipo is sweeping the floors and finding all sorts of knick knacks; Tommy is “organizing” the cubbies; Margaret puts on music and sorts the bad mail (bills) from the good mail (Tom and Margaret Curtain 50th wedding anniversary); Charlie seems to find soccer balls everywhere; Emma is chanting, “When in doubt, throw it out.” I am on the couch pointing with my crutches and telling them to disregard the mess on the coffee table (my mess). If I could get this miracle to repeat itself daily, you would see me on reality TV: “Superdad Reveals His Secrets to Subservient Children”.

One by one they break out of their routine and sprawl on the couches and on the arms of oversized leather chairs and laugh at some Disney Channel inanity. Tommy sits next to me with a plastic turtle he made for me (found in the recesses of his cubby) and asks when is Father’s Day?

I give him a hug and tell him: “Today....”

Turning Points

      After our final exams, our annual tradition at school is to take the 8th grade class to Canobie Lake Park for the day. For the kids it is a great day; for us teachers, it is a time to find a coffee shop and grade all of those final exams. This is my first year that I can not make it Canobie Lake as I just had my knee replaced last week. I posted this little piece on our class blog as a final farewell to my three classes of 8th grade boys. It has been about as fun a year as I can remember. Good kids and good attitudes. It makes it easy to go back from year to year to year....

Going to Canobie Lake is always the turning point of the year for me. It is like some primal signal that it is time to turn away from the school year and towards the future.  Obviously, it is my hope that you learned some useful skills this year; but, more importantly, I hope that you have gained a deeper sense of the power and importance of words--and that you will tap into that power in whatever way you need or want over the course of your life. I want you to know that I am always around as another set of eyes for anything you write over these eight or ten more years of school--and many more of simply life--that you have ahead of you. Sometimes, it is simply good to hear from you. This year, this is the last you will hear from me. My last echo...

        Life will change you, and you will change your life. Be willing to change. Recently, I heard from an old student who hated whenever I assigned a "creative" writing assignment. Last year he won one of The Groton School's Creative Writing Awards. Another student who started playing guitar in the shop--and who refused to sing a single word--just released an impressive debut CD of original music. The point is: don't be limited by what you feel you are today. Though you might only see a small stone; there is always a universe of possibilities! You just need to be brave enough  to cross the threshold; you have to accept that no songs will be sung about you if you avoid the pain and suffering and struggle of the heroic cycle, which is part and parcel of every life lived to the fullest.  

        Your life is the epic poem you are about to live, so live! Don't be remembered as Pap, or the The Duke and Dauphin, or Himmelstoss or Kantorek, or a nameless suitor, or even a vain and impetuous god: be remembered as a man (because that is what you are) who responds to the stirrings within yourself and who recognizes these stirrings as the wisdom of Mentes and who acts as if guided by the power of bright-eyed Athena. This is the power that entwined and empowered the actions of Jim and Huck and Paul. Trust in our own individual wisdom is the power that sustains greatness.

        Friendship is a metaphor for caring, persistence, constancy, and courage. Become that metaphor and you will never feel or be alone. Be like Paul Baumer and be willing to risk everything for your friends. Be like the kings and swineherds of The Odyssey and welcome strangers as the friends they should be  for friends will always be true and faithful even when society is not. Be willing to carry or be carried across and through the battles of life. Don't leave these friends you have made; don't lose touch with the cast of round and flat characters who make up your life today or you will become that flat character remembered only as a fleeting scene or footnote buried in the plot of a dull and uninspired story. 

      Your life is a young poem, and it is the soil upon which your future will grow.  Cultivate your mind as you would the garden you need to survive. Remember that poetry is the greatest fruit of your being. Poetry is not always a pile of written words; it is the ability to see like Basho. Life is never a single image.  It is an image and an action given new meaning by the twists and turns of how we take it and act upon it; it is the juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated scenes that we pair together to create deeper meaning and purpose and sustenance. 

        Be prepared to sit and let the moon reflect off of you. Nature is the greatest teacher and the only one who is always there for you and who is always waiting. Though you can't enter the same river twice, you can always sit on the banks and be restored--but it will never happen unless you walk to the river--wherever and whatever that river happens to be. The classroom is only the finger pointing at the moon--not the moon itself.

        Above all remember. Remember everything. Memories and thoughts only truly exist when put into words, so craft carefully and treasure dearly the words you create.

        Give a damn. Nothing gold can stay.  

Fitz's Essay & Reflection Formula

Many of my daily entries over the course of the summer are essays and reflections that I share with my summer blogging students.  These entries are part of a compilation about writing that I am editing and revising for a future book length workbook for my work in the classroom. I apologize if you find yourself reading something that you may have seen in my blog before in some way shape or fashion. I included this reflection today because I had dinner with a friend last night who told me that she uses this formula with her third grade students to help introduce essay writing.

A Quick Essay & Reflection Formula

Snap you fingers in 4/4 time and repeat: "Set the scene and state the theme. Say what you mean, and finish it clean!"

One of the hardest parts of writing is finding a way to make sense of what you want to say, explain, or convey to your readers--especially when facing an empty page with a half an hour to kill and an entry to write (or a timed essay or exam writing prompt). Here is a quick formula that might help you when you need to create a writing piece "on the fly." At the very least, it should guide you as your write in your blog, and it will reinforce that any essay (introduction, body, and conclusion) needs to be at least three paragraphs long!

I've always told my students (who are probably tired of hearing me recite the same things over and over again): "If you know the rules, you can break them." But you better be a pretty solid writer before you start creating your own rules. The bottom line is that nobody really cares about what you write; they care about how your writing affects and transforms them intellectually and emotionally as individuals. In short, to satisfy, you must edify, and if you can get your intended audience to want to read your next sentence, you have succeeded as a writer. This formula is simply a way to help that happen!

There are four main reasons that someone will “want” to read what you write; otherwise,(crushing reality) they won’t!  

• Your teacher or your boss (and perhaps your parents and friends) will read what you write because they either have to or they love you enough to care about what you write.
  
• A reader who is already interested in your topic will more than likely slog through anything that discusses what they are already in reading about. For example, I will read anything that has to do with building wooden boats or sailing across lonely oceans.
  
• People will read anything written by writers who have proven that he or she writes great stuff and who never seem to let you down (or let you put their writing down). Wendell Berry falls into this category for me! Dr. Seuss is another writer who developed an extremely loyal fan base. I’m sure you have some writers that do this for you!
  
• Finally, (and this is the best one) sometimes you start reading something and you just can’t put it down. Through practice, imitation, and experimentation, the best writers develop of way of writing that is interesting and rewarding to read--even when they break every rule of writing.

 
These guidelines are not rules, but they try to mimic the natural and logical way of an enlightened conversation. Believe me, it works. Really!

1. Set the scene and state the theme: Use your first paragraph to lead up to your theme. If the lead in to your essay is dull and uninspired, you will lose your readers before they get to the theme. If you simply state your theme right off the bat, you will only attract the readers who are "already" interested in your topic. Your theme is the main point, idea, thought, or experience you want your writing piece to convey to your audience. (Often it is called a "Thesis Statement.) I suggest making your theme be the last sentence of your opening paragraph because it makes sense to put it there, and it will guide your reader in a clear and, hopefully, compelling way. In fact, constantly remind yourself to make your theme be as clear, concise and memorable as possible. Consciously or unconsciously, your readers constantly refer back to your theme as mnemonic guide for "why" you are writing your essay in the first place! Every writing piece is a journey of discovery, but do everything you possibly can to make the journey worthwhile from the start.

A sentence is a thought fully expressed. A paragraph is a thought fully explored.

2. Say what you mean: Write about your theme. Use as many paragraphs as you "need." A paragraph should be as short as it can be and as long as it has to be. Make the first sentence(s) "be" what the whole paragraph is going to be about. Try and make those sentences be clear, concise and memorable (just like your theme) and make sure everything relates closely to the theme you so clearly expressed in your first paragraph. If your paragraph does not relate to your theme, it would be like opening up the directions for a fire extinguisher and finding directions for baking chocolate chip cookies instead! Finally, do your best to balance the size of your body paragraphs. If they are out of proportion to each other, then an astute reader will make the assumption that some of your points are way better than your other points, and so the seed of cynicism will be sown before your reader even begins the journey.

3. Finish it clean: Conclusions need to be as simple as possible. In conversations only boring or self important people drag out the end of a conversation. When you are finished saying what you wanted to say, exit confidently and cleanly. DON"T add any new information into the last paragraph; DON'T retell what you've already told, and DON'T preen before the mirror of your brilliance. Just "get out of Dodge" in an interesting and thoughtful (and quick) way. Use three sentences or less. It shows your audience that you appreciate their intelligence and literacy!

Set the scene; state the theme; say what you mean, and finish it clean is a simple rubric for writing to keep in your head as you read and comment, and to practice in your writing as you reflect and express yourself with words.


 

Listen & Learn

“A Calm Sea Never a Captain Makes”

Sometimes I hate my boat; however, hating a needy pile of wood, sail, and line is less distressing than what it teaches me about myself. My trying to remove the encrusted fossils of marine life from the hull after eight months in drydock is a harsh reminder that ten minutes of a simple power-washing on Labor Day would have negated the hours of cursing, scraping and crawling on the back-stabbing scree of a New England boatyard that occupied my day yesterday. Years ago, I blithely and absent-mindedly watched as a friend showed me how to make a wire splice. Tomorrow I am paying some old salt two hundred dollars to splice some wire needed to haul my halyard. Damn me! I should be that old salt by now, not some humble yuppie with a romantic notion of the sea, willing to pay twice just to learn once. The list could go on, but so would my self-loathing. Sometimes too, we hate what we write because we know that we did not listen to the old curmudgeon or (in my case) Sister Jean Beatrice droning in front of us in English class about the virtues of punctuation. We write and ineffectually remember that there is something missing from our repertoire of skills--skills that we learned once but cast off as detritus from a bygone age.

In my youth I learned a lot about sailing and boatbuilding, but I never really went to sea on my own, and so my skills were not reinforced by the granite memory of experience. The dream remained alive, while the lost knowledge now looms like an apparition in the distance, like the ghost of an early death, haunting and enchanting in the same breath. I am relearning and re-remembering because I have to regain the footing of my nautical dream and make that first new turn out of the harbor. As a writer, don't neglect the small details--the placing of commas, the quotes within quotes, the run-ons, the introductory phrases, conjunctions and pronouns, colons and semi-colons--that help you construct, repair and clarify your thoughts and ideas, and somehow keep together the sweeping power of great poetry and literature. They are the bolts and screws and planks that hold the boat together.

Everything you've learned about writing is important and useful to the crafting of your words. It was, after all, a simple wire splice keeping me in port! If you are young, cling to what you learn and keep it close to your heart. If you are old, unearth and restore the memories you need to face the day and the empty page with confidence and courage. Build upon what you already know and sail towards your own dreams. Ultimately, a Captain is only made at sea, not on land. As an English teacher, I drive my students crazy by writing long preambles to my assignments; I hide the details of what is due tomorrow in a labyrinth of reflections, observations and admonitions. They beg me to just highlight in bold what they need to do. I get away with it because I can. The reality is more difficult with the summer writing communities. No one “teacher” is forcing you to read or write anything. I just assume you want to become a better writer.

I write because I love to write, but I, too, have a long way to go before I can call myself a captain. The few knots I know won't serve me in every situation I will face. My hope is that you are willing to learn as well--and learn more than I can possibly ever teach you! The simple act of sustained and attentive writing will make you a better writer, but to combine the act of writing with the focused study of the craft of writing can make you a great writer--a writer who is truly ready to face the open sea! Too much of education separates the bird from the wing, and this is especially true in our more common ways of teaching writing. My children spend hours of homework time circling prepositional phrases and adverbial clauses in remarkably generic workbooks. I appreciate that they are learning the elemental nature and grammar of language, but, in my cynical moments, I marvel at how lucky their teachers are that the whole class needs work on the same mechanics. I wonder if those teachers are aware that they are creating a flock of awkward, flightless birds dawdling around on barren dung heaps because the skills they are taught are not tested out in the moiling waters of an angry ocean. There is often nothing to show for all of their labor but a grade and a potentially higher MCAS score.

The skills we teach our students must be useful in real situations, and those students need to see how those skills have practical value in their personal odyssey as real writers. The poems, songs, stories, reflections, essays and narratives that I am asking you to write in your writing community are my attempts to let you go to sea on your own and discover both your greatness and your limitations. Without an adventurous journey, it is all too easy to lose the incentive to understand the workings of the viscera that keeps our writing alive. We are all at different places as writers. If Sister Jean Beatrice is no longer around to walk the aisle between the desks with her ever ready ruler, there needs to be a fire in your belly of your own creation, driving you forward, While you listen and learn.

Write to Your Audience

Imagine you are cooking dinner and your stove catches on fire. No problem, because you bought a new fire extinguisher the other day, and it's hanging on the wall right next to the stove. You grab the extinguisher and quickly read the instruction label. It reads: “My fascination with fire extinguishers began when I was a young child--early in 1963 as I recall...”  I doubt you will think to yourself, “Wow, this will be really interesting to read!”  You might rather that the instructions read: “Point extinguisher at the fire, pull the metal pin, and squeeze the black handle.” Knowing your audience and the reason you are writing goes a long way towards defining the style, tone, and content of your writing.

Many well-meaning teachers and schools have done a pretty good job of killing the joy of writing by neglecting the natural origin and evolution of writing. You probably write a paper, hand it in, get a grade, and, more than likely, it is then buried in a sheave of other papers in the recesses of your backpack. These written works are handed in to a machine and spit back at us with a reptilian calculus and moral detachment. But words are meant to be heard and read, not damned with little praise or created in a vacuum. Even the greatest literary works are never finished; they are abandoned to a world where the writer hopes a willing ear will listen. If our focus is on imperfection, how can we ever look in the mirror?

John Updike  gave a lecture at my school one night, and during the question and answer period a parent rose and asked what Mr. Updike thought about how writing is taught in our schools. Mr. Updike responded with a simple and laconic: “Well, I wish there were more yeses than no's.”  The frustrated parent sat down with pursed lips and folded arms. It was obviously not the answer he anticipated. Even the word “essay” is derived from the French word “essai'” which means, “to try.” Let  writers try, and let ourselves-like a respectful audience--listen with active minds and open hearts and offer our responses in the same spirit.

We need to remind ourselves that writing is a conversation from the head and heart to an actual person or persons. This is your audience! Writing is a new, interactive and exciting human adventure. As much as I love my dog, I seldom send her postcards from my travels; moreover, most of us don't carry on a conversation when no one is with us. My wife is an amazing writer. (She is also refreshingly untainted by living with a writing teacher.)  “I write,” she says, “just like I talk.” This way of thinking is not a bad way to approach writing--plus, when writing, you get to rewind your conversation if you say something stupid. Good writers intuitively understand that writing should flow with the natural rhythm and unique cadence of the spoken word; they understand that rambling and disjointed writing is as unappealing as a rambling and disjointed conversation; moreover, they try with all their mind, and heart, and soul to make their written word aspire to the majesty of the most eloquent spoken word.

The written word is always an extension of the spoken word delivered to a specific audience--an audience that you need to visualize and see what they are willing and capable of understanding  The written word is simply a new way to remember the spoken word. Novelists have taken over where the storytellers left off; newspapers and magazines have supplanted the town crier bellowing from the village square, while essayists now give lasting form and testament to the speeches and harangues that for centuries rallied the troops and urged countrymen to join a cause or crusade.

Our personal reflections and journals capture our quiet meditations and make palpable the fleeting memories of our lives, and they enliven and embolden the lives of our readers. Temper the steel of your imagination; hone and craft the voice you already have, and your words will ring clear and true through the ages yet to come. Your voice is as real as the acorn sprouting in the waiting earth, and, as the saying goes, “No less than the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here.” 

And aim high, for you will only hit what you aim at!

Joy, Writing, & Sports

    At the end of this school year, a couple of my students—students who I already knew well from coaching—told me how scared they felt in the fall when they were placed in my 8th grade English class.  They had heard locker room talk that I assigned huge swaths of reading every night, and that I expected them to write thousands of words—and to write every day! Though they were mystified when some kids said it was fun, they still didn’t believe their supposed friends. They had to be suck-ups of some sort, but it was only reinforced when I assigned a 500 word writing assignment on the first day of class.   Five...hundred...reluctant...words...slowly and painfully extricated from the embittered hearts of enslaved teenagers. Where did a laid back ex-shop teacher get the moral authority to force them to blindly write tortured prose and then post those words to a blog where “everybody” in class also had to read and comment on that writing? Papers were supposed to be turned in and quietly returned several days later with scribbles and scrawls that justified the grade discreetly placed away from the prying eyes of their competition.

    These were the same kids who diligently armored their bodies every afternoon with helmets and pads on the hottest of September afternoons to push a five hundred pound sled around the football field, while coach LoPresti snarled at them with the sympathy of a South Boston townie—and this they did for two hours everyday--every mistake; every slip of the foot; every wheeze from tired lungs laid out for all to see.  They did it because they love the game, and they knew that it was just what you had to do to be a football player.  But they didn’t know—even after eight years of schooling—many of them in an elite prep school, is what it takes to be a writer.  For these kids, there was no literary equivalent of Tom Brady to inspire their practiced motions; there was no scrimmage at the end of class to showcase their hard fought efforts, and there was no game at the end of the week to make every bruised bone worth the effort. In short, there was no real joy in writing. Writing was just something done in class for a teacher and to the teacher. There was no game, only an endgame—that single grade at the end of each term.

    None of us can write well unless we scrimmage in our backyards. If my kids have a pickup soccer game going in the backyard, I won’t rush out back and set up cones for them to practice their dribbling skills.  I am simply happy they are out there playing the game they love to play. More than just practicing soccer, they are figuring out on their own how to be a better player. They know the rules; they’ve had plenty of town and school practices, but there is never enough time to play with the joy and abandon of a backyard pickup game. The key to becoming a great writer is to find “joy” in writing—any kind of writing, and to play whenever the opportunity presents itself.

    The basic rules of any type of writing and the basic rules of any sport are pretty simple—or  at least they should be. The best place to start writing—and find joy in writing—is to write what you like to read.  If you love reading the sports section of The Boston Globe, write about sports.  If you find yourself reading Gothic romance novels, try your hand at writing a short story in that genre. If you are moved by poetry, write poetry.  Imitate who and what you love and who and what inspires you, and you will come to love writing; and, when you begin to love writing, you will willingly find the time to practice the skills you need to become a better writer.

    For this weeks writing prompt I want you to do a few things. First, write an entry about what you really like to read. Be specific by naming writers and what type of writing they do. Secondly, try writing a piece in the genre of writing that you know you love.  Don’t worry if it is good or bad writing.  I’m a horrible basketball player, but I will still play whenever I get the chance for as long as my creaky knees will hold up.  Finally, spend an hour or so “practicing” the punctuation skills that are common to all writing. This is like the strength ad aerobic training that is useful for any sport! Start by making your way through the links on the “Punctuation” sidebar on your blog.  Begin with comma usage—everything seems to flow out of good comma usage! If you are feeling inspired, read parts of “Elements of Style,” which is also on the sidebar of your blog. Remember that these prompts are just the minimum I expect of you,  More is always better, especially if you are enjoying what you write.  I know that I enjoy everything you post and comment on the blogs!

    The key is to be like those students of mine out on the football field and spend the time to both practice and play. The game is what you write.  The crowd is the cheering of the writing community you are in. I know that many of you are off at camps and on vacations, but if you are near a computer, log in, have fun, and be a player.

Thanks!

Fitz

P.S. The conversation with my students all began because they were concerned that I placed a 750 word maximum on their final essay.  They wanted me to up it to at least 1000 words, so they could be sure to answer the writing prompt effectively.

Keeping a Daily Journal

     I don’t always practice what I preach, especially when it comes to the simple, unaffected, and ordinary “journal entry.” Much of my reticence towards the casual journal entry is the public nature of the blogs.  It is hard for me as a teacher of writing to post an entry that I know is trivial, mundane, and perhaps of no interest to my readers—but that is precisely what I need to do if I am to model the full spectrum of the writing process. Keeping a journal is more than a search for lofty thoughts amidst the detritus of the day; it is a practice that keeps our wits and writing skills honed for a coming feast by rambling through the meat of the day and drifting and sailing to whatever port is nearest to our pen. [An adept critic of writing would be aghast at this mixing of metaphors, but I have to—at least for now—not care.] I have to let my mind go and journey (journal) where it will.

    At the very least, a journal filled with the scraps and pieces of our daily lives will outlive our own lives and serve as both beacon and reminder to future generations. Once, in my days as a junkman, I cleaned out an old barn in Maynard after the elderly widower—a man I only remember  now as Bob—wife had died. Scrounging through the boxes for anything of value, I came across a series of leather bound journals dating back to the 1930’s. I found a journal marked 1941, so I looked up the date of the Pearl Harbor attack eager for insight as to the profound effect that day must have had on the common man of his or her time. I turned through page after page of impeccable script and learned that Bob and his family went to church in the morning, during which they sang certain hymns (hymns that I can’t remember now—but he did.)  Afterwards, they drove to Stow for dinner with his extended family. He wrote about the meal, the weather, the condition of the roads, and, in two brief lines at the close of his entry: “The Japs attacked Pearl Harbor today. I trust President Roosevelt will know what to do.”

    And that was it.

    At first glance, I saw a xenophobic racist putting blind trust in fallible rulers. I couldn’t reconcile it with the kind and gentle old man, and best friend to my best friend’s father, who had recently passed away. I didn’t see it as a window into another time and another mindset. In the arrogance of my youthful pride, I couldn’t appreciate the elegiac beauty of his day—a whole day devoted to faith and the full circle of family.  It wasn’t until years later when I sat on the bench by the World War Two Memorial in downtown Maynard and scrolled through the scores of boys and men from this one small mill town killed in battle that I realized the full extent of my myopia.  I should have sat in his barn for days and read every word from his journals and then, maybe, I could have seen the evolution of a person in the fullness of time through the clarity of still waters.

    Maybe Bob’s youthful ramblings, tempered by the death of so many of his townsmen, somehow transformed into the pearls of laconic wisdom that old age should bring—pearls that would fetch a heady price in the market of the modern mind. The greatest tragedy is that we’ll never know. I offered the journals to his son, but he was content to have me throw the whole lot into the back of my Chevy pickup and pay me fifty dollars for load I scattered into the fires of the Concord dump. The irony of tossing those journals away not more than 150 yards from the site of Thoreau’s cabin on Walden Pond remained lost on me for many years, even as I trudged dutifully to the Concord library to scour through the massive tomes of Thoreau’s own journals. The old man had done exactly what Thoreau believed was required first of any man or woman when he admonished all would be writers:

"I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives..."
                                                                                    ~Walden

A  further irony is that my own journals from my years between eighteen and twenty five years old, which filled a good-sized cardboard box, were also inadvertently tossed into the same dump by a roommate intent on purging all the junk we were accumulating in our Williams Road farmhouse. The Concord dump is now a series of perfectly sculptured hills slowly regaining the shape and character of the woods that Thoreau tramped and stumbled through 150 years ago. It is a noble idea funded the well-intentioned, but a nobler action would be to dig through the mold and dirt of time and truly find what the past has to offer us, buried almost irretrievably as it is.

    Poetry is what is left unsaid. The stolid words of brevity simply point us in a direction only the brave will wander.  Through the daily words of an old Italian farmer I found a new kind of poetry. Pine Tree farm, owned by the Ammendolia’s, was one of the last of the Italian family farms scattered in every corner of Concord. Tony Ammendolia was the patriarch who somehow kept the dream alive even as farm after from succumbed to the teeming aorta of suburbia. It was there where I worked on school breaks and on summer weekends picking corn at 4:00 AM before the heat of the day and hoeing seemingly infinite rows of tomatoes, beans, pumpkins, and eggplants in the heat of the day where success and failure crisscrossed and intersected in a struggle to just get by. My Goddaughters were raised there, and their parents, my good friends Deb and Jack, still keep a few acres going to this day. Tony died two years ago after defying for many years the cancer he fought with the same stubbornness that he did the vicissitudes of nature in the cycle of droughts and floods and insects he faced at every turn during his days as a farmer.

    Every night for over sixty years Tony would sit at his desk after dinner and write in his journal. Tony knew I was a writer and would kiddingly tease me that he was a writer too, but in a good-natured poke at my transient approach to life, he was also a farmer. I was at Jack and Debs recently for dinner and asked about Tony’s journals.  Jack perked up as the proud inheritor of this family treasure and immediately found me one of the many small notebooks that Tony kept. I opened it and felt the tears well in my eyes for it read like a type of poetry I had never read before. Tony never meandered from the scope of his own life, but his words spelled-out a conviction that celebrated both the common fragility and majesty of life with sentences both sparse and foreboding: “Potato beetles got the eggplants on Bedford Street. We will not sell eggplant this year.”  “Three days of rain. Lucky, as the irrigation pumps needs a new valve.” Each entry is a sublime excising out of the ordinary: the sky, the temperature, what was done, what had to be left undone, how much seed, what was selling and what was not selling—but never a mention of the money made or not made.  There is never a mention of personal angst or frustration for over sixty continuous years. Those details were best left to imagination and speculation. Some, myself especially, have to call it poetry.

    Our own journals need the same attention that Bob and Tony put into their daily records so that our journals can also chart the common unfolding of our lives. As writers and sojourners in life it is our call and duty to map the expanse of our existence. We don’t need to lay our souls bare for all to see and gossip about, but we should find a place to keep a daily journal. Whether it is written in leather bound journals, spiral notepads, or saved as private or public drafts in your blog doesn’t matter, but just a few short lines each day will serve to spark your memory in a later age—and memories wizened in the vat of a thoughtful life will always produce a finer wine. Journaling is a word that has been antiquated before its time. Though fewer and fewer of us take the time to sit with pen and paper, there is still a time place for the spirit of journaling to continue.

    Make the time to map your own quest. A friend asked me yesterday why I didn’t have a GPS in my truck. He simply shook his head when I answered, “First, I have to remember where I’ve been.” Today’s technologies offer us possibilities unimagined to our literary forbears. Our daily journals can hold both pristine images of our lives via photos, video clips, and music, and most importantly, words. The web allows us to scour the world for like-minded souls that share our particular interests with whom we can share our passions on sites like Facebook, blogs, or personal web sites. My only issue with much of what is out there on these sites is their exploitive and self-indulgent banality. Bob and Tony’s journals seemed permeated with an almost religious devotion as they chronicled the recitations of their days in rhythm with the pattern of their everyday lives, while on the other side, many Facebook (and related type) sites I have visited have a tiresome and sycophantic obsession with the mundane and profligate side of that persons supposed interests and lifestyle. It is hard—and sometimes impossible—to wrest any kind of context out of the content. Nothing, except a prurient curiosity, keeps me interested—and that is no road to enlightenment for either side of the equation. On some few sites there are links to blogs and other artistic websites where a deeper and more invested side of that person comes through. For them, their Facebook page is simply an adjunct to their life—a social gathering place to rest and draw water with friends and community. There is nothing wrong with that, but it should never be the destination of your journey, and if you can’t see life as a journey—an odyssey of existence—then you simply can’t see.

    I guess the word I am looking for is devotion. None of our lives are more complicated than Bob or Tony’s lives. All they did that is different is make time to look closely at what was important to them in their lives.

    Take time. Remember where you've been.

    Thanks for reading.

Using Commas Correctly and Effectively

     Becoming better at something is not rocket science; it is, as Thomas Edison said, "...90% perspiration and 10% inspiration. In other words, reaching a new level in any skill or endeavor requires old-fashioned work. In writing, this means that you need to learn some of the basic skills of punctuation so that the depth and power of your words are delivered to your readers as effectively as possible. Luckily, most people are able to read through errors in punctuation without becoming completely confused. One of the best writers in the English language, Cormac McCarthy, uses punctuation sparingly. However, I am also sure, he knows darn well how to use punctuation if he needed to use punctuation, and I am also sure that your teachers, SAT graders, and potential employers will appreciate that you utilize proper and effective punctuation in your writing.

After many years of writing and teaching writing, I can say with confidence that the ability to use a comma correctly is 90% of the punctuation battle; furthermore, 90% of knowing how and when to use commas is being able to know a clause or a phrase when you you see it (or write it!).

Take the time to study my comma rules and common comma errors, and view the attached  powerpoint on clauses and comma usage: It is also on my blog:  Simply go to my Punctuation links. There is a link that will take you to a page with numerous punctuation powerpoints. View: "Clauses: Essential Building Blocks" and the "English House of Commas." This should prepare you for learning more about comma usage (and misusage). 

Here is the "Conquering the Comma" powerpoint, which will work for you if you have Powerpoint or Keynote (for mac) on your computer. Download Conqering the Comma Powerpoint

 

Whenever you use (or don't use) a comma, you should soon know which rule you are using.  And when you know the rules, you will write with more confidence and clarity, and, like Cormac McCarthy, if you know the  rules, you can break them!

Have fun.  After you feel like you know what you are doing, try some of the online quizzes at the bottom of this page to find out if you have conquered the comma--or not!

I will send this weeks writing prompt, "Writing a Memoir," to you later today (to give you time to practice commas:)

Thanks for all of the great writing posted on your blogs. Stay inspired, keep writing, and keep commenting.

Fitz

The Top Ten Comma Rules:

1. Separate Elements in a Series:

• I have to remember to bring my books,pencil, baloney, and peanut butter fluff sandwich.

Use a comma before the final "if" there could be any confusion in meaning without it.

Note: if you are introducing a list with a noun, use a colon to introduce the list.

• Don't forget these important items: my books, pencil, baloney, and peanut butter
• fluff sandwich. 

If you introduce the list with a verb use a comma after the first item in the list:

• Don't forget my books, pencil, baloney, and peanut butter fluff sandwich.

Be Careful What You Preach.

I had to smile at this e-mail Seth sent me.  The following are actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays:

Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

She grew on him like she was a colony of E.coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.
McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.
Even in his last years, Grandpappy had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put in any pH cleanser.

She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.

Writing Prompt Two: Danny, Jimmy, & Me

Mrs Roeber never seemed to let Jimmy go outside, which, to my thinking as an 11 year old, was why he was so smart.  Most days after school, I’d rush two houses down the street and get Danny Gannon to come out and play. Then the two of us would go to Jimmy’s house next door.  If Mrs Roeber answered, she would always be polite and say something like, “Jimmy needs to catch up on some science work. Perhaps he can play later.”  If Jimmy answered, he’d usually be out of breath from running upstairs from his basement “office” and plead with us not to give up on him--or at the very least go out back and talk to him through the basement window.  So, me and Danny would sneak out back and lay on our stomachs on the pokey grey gravel outside his basement window. Five feet below, Jimmy would be doing his work at his workbench (which, in all honesty, was a pretty cool place).  I always wished I was smarter, so I could  do his work for him and get him outside to play. I was better than Jimmy at a lot of things, but those things would never get graded until you can appreciate them “later in life.“  But, to my Tom Sawyer way of thinking, I preferred being outside and average to being inside and smart.  Danny was an outside kid and smart, too, and that always troubled me, but not enough to let it call my inside/smart: outside/not smart philosophy into question. Danny’s voice was always the one that tried to tell me that the sledding jump was too high, or that branch would not support my weight, or those snakes would bite, or that we couldn’t run faster than a nest of bees we just destroyed.  Once we got Jimmy outside, he was like a mad scientist: ”We’ll, just have to see how high Fitz can go on his sled,“ or, ”I’ll distract the snake so Fitz  can grab it from behind,“ or ”Bees have been clocked flying at 80 miles per hour.“ Looking back, we probably seemed like the gang that couldn’t shoot straight, and we did tend to go our different ways as we grew older, but we always still manage to reconnect somehow, and it doesn’t seem like we are a day older. It’s kind of hard to put into words because Danny and Jimmy might not be my best friends, but they will always be my best friends. Just thinking of the three of us together is like a window opening to a cool and welcome breeze. And the coolest thing is the window is always there. It might be that the only thing we actually had in common was living next door to each other, but still, we made it work. Imagine if the world thought this way.

Writing Prompt: It was fun for me to sit down for the hour or more it took me to write that paragraph and remember Danny and Jimmy.  Because it is only one paragraph (I could probably break it in two or three), it can only give a glimpse into our friendship, but (hopefully) it gives you enough to know how important they were--and still are--in my life. For the first writing prompt this week, tell a story about someone you consider to be one of your best friends. It can be as long as you want it to be, but it should be at least one ”meaty“ paragraph. The reason it took me so long to write my paragraph (apart from the fact that I spent too much of my childhood outside:)) is that I ”tried“ to use specific scenes to help tell my story; I used dialogue a little bit, and I used some ”reflection“ (which is a fancy word for saying what I thought and felt).  If you put all three of those writing techniques together, it always makes for more interesting reading.  Try it!!!

Comment: PLEASE, please, pleez, pull-ease comment on the other blogs in your community.  Just click on their names in the sidebar, read what your fellow writers are writing and leave a nice comment because it is really nice to know when people appreciate the work you do.  Heck, you can even go to my blog and post a comment. It will make my day!

Write what you want: The prompts are just a part of what you should be writing on your blogs. Half the fun of writing is just sitting down and seeing what comes.  Write movie and book reviews, describe a day in your life in the summer, write poetry or songs, post pictures--anything! because everything you put in your blog will help to make your blog a treasure trove of memories you can have for the rest of your life.

Mrs Roeber never seemed to let Jimmy go outside, which, to my thinking as an 11 year old, was why he was so smart.  Most days after school, I’d rush two houses down the street and get Danny Gannon to come out and play. Then the two of us would go to Jimmy’s house next door.  If Mrs Roeber answered, she would always be polite and say something like, “Jimmy needs to catch up on some science work. Perhaps he can play later.”  If Jimmy answered, he’d usually be out of breath from running upstairs from his basement “office” and plead with us not to give up on him--or at the very least go out back and talk to him through the basement window.  So, me and Danny would sneak out back and lay on our stomachs on the pokey grey gravel outside his basement window. Five feet below, Jimmy would be doing his work at his workbench (which, in all honesty, was a pretty cool place).  I always wished I was smarter, so I could  do his work for him and get him outside to play. I was better than Jimmy at a lot of things, but those things would never get graded until you can appreciate them “later in life.“  But, to my Tom Sawyer way of thinking, I preferred being outside and average to being inside and smart.  Danny was an outside kid and smart, too, and that always troubled me, but not enough to let it call my inside/smart: outside/not smart philosophy into question. Danny’s voice was always the one that tried to tell me that the sledding jump was too high, or that branch would not support my weight, or those snakes would bite, or that we couldn’t run faster than a nest of bees we just destroyed.  Once we got Jimmy outside, he was like a mad scientist: ”We’ll, just have to see how high Fitz can go on his sled,“ or, ”I’ll distract the snake so Fitz  can grab it from behind,“ or ”Bees have been clocked flying at 80 miles per hour.“ Looking back, we probably seemed like the gang that couldn’t shoot straight, and we did tend to go our different ways as we grew older, but we always still manage to reconnect somehow, and it doesn’t seem like we are a day older. It’s kind of hard to put into words because Danny and Jimmy might not be my best friends, but they will always be my best friends. Just thinking of the three of us together is like a window opening to a cool and welcome breeze. And the coolest thing is the window is always there. It might be that the only thing we actually had in common was living next door to each other, but still, we made it work. Imagine if the world thought this way.

Writing Prompt: It was fun for me to sit down for the hour or more it took me to write that paragraph and remember Danny and Jimmy.  Because it is only one paragraph (I could probably break it in two or three), it can only give a glimpse into our friendship, but (hopefully) it gives you enough to know how important they were--and still are--in my life. For the first writing prompt this week, tell a story about someone you consider to be one of your best friends. It can be as long as you want it to be, but it should be at least one ”meaty“ paragraph. The reason it took me so long to write my paragraph (apart from the fact that I spent too much of my childhood outside:)) is that I ”tried“ to use specific scenes to help tell my story; I used dialogue a little bit, and I used some ”reflection“ (which is a fancy word for saying what I thought and felt).  If you put all three of those writing techniques together, it always makes for more interesting reading.  Try it!!!

Comment: PLEASE, please, pleez, pull-ease comment on the other blogs in your community.  Just click on their names in the sidebar, read what your fellow writers are writing and leave a nice comment because it is really nice to know when people appreciate the work you do.  Heck, you can even go to my blog and post a comment. It will make my day!

Write what you want: The prompts are just a part of what you should be writing on your blogs. Half the fun of writing is just sitting down and seeing what comes.  Write movie and book reviews, describe a day in your life in the summer, write poetry or songs, post pictures--anything! because everything you put in your blog will help to make your blog a treasure trove of memories you can have for the rest of your life.

A Morning Paragraph

Vacation only seems to begin when I finally slow down and realize, “There is nothing that I really have to today.” It feels like that today. Hopefully, we’ll meet Taylor and Sarah on their whaleboat out of Provincetown and go see some whales; or we’ll just go to Crosby’s beach and scour the mudflats for hours; or we’ll go to Nickerson State Park and swim in the cool, clean waters of their “kettle” ponds, but, right now, there is nothing to do.  I hear the trumpet playing reveille at the Cape Cod Sea camps, which reminds me that we will be off to our summer camp. There is a chorus of different songbirds coming from every direction, punctuated by the cacophony of crows flapping around the power lines which reminds me that we have still not figured out what kind of bird is raising a family in Nana’s birdhouse, and there is Maizy, laying curled at my feet, looking like she could use a trip to a pond for a lazy dip to stifle off the summer heat that is already setting in this morning--even though it is barely past seven o’clock. The only thing I need to do today is to remain grateful for every moment and every opportunity. If I can hear Tommy screaming from the top of the hill he climbed yesterday (immensely proud that he reached the top before five of his brothers and sisters scrambling on all fours behind him) Hurry: If I can make it; you can make it! I can see forever from up here! I will be a happy man. Happiness and thankfulness needs only a dose of reflection to almost count as wisdom--and perhaps that is the wisest way to start every day.

Do I Really Love Home Depot?

I'm trying out the quick compose box on my blog. I woke early this morning to try and get started on projects that will be brutal in the heat of the day. Our RV (we just call it "the bus") has broken water pipes in impossible to reach places, so I'm trying out these new things called "shark fits" that just press on the end of pipes--and to which you can just add flexible hose and bypass the break. I bought most of the stuff at Home Depot--even though I always try to buy from the local guys, but I was saddened that the local stores had little of what I needed (not much) and a surprising lack of knowledge or interest in what I was doing (as fascinating as it is to me:) whereas, at Home Depot, some older man spent a good half an hour leading me through the steps I needed to do to fix the pipes.

I tell my kids in school that all I really care about from them is to give a damn, so it was good to find someone who gave me a damn--and who knew what he was talking about--but it was sad that it couldn't happen in the heart of a small town I love so much.

Now: into the bowels of the bus....

First Prompt 2010

    Welcome to the summer writing community! Everything is now set up for you to begin your summer writing, and everything is set up for “me” to begin my summer writing, too. Although I am truly psyched to begin, it is hard to make the shift from the writing we do at school to the writing we do on the summer blogs. I don’t know if I want to write a song first, or a poem, a story, an essay (yes, even essays can be fun--really fun) or just a journal entry about what I did, or what I am  going to do, today. No matter what we write, the hardest part is finding the time, sitting down, thinking of direction to go (or a place to end up), and then to start tapping out the first few keystrokes, but these are the habits that every good writer needs to master--or at least practice (for there is never mastery without practice). The carpenter draws a line on a board and then cuts the board all the way through; a writer gets a thought in his or her head, and they start writing until that thought is fully expressed. Sometimes the results are amazing; sometimes they are not amazing, but it is always time well spent; moreover, I can promise you that if you make the time this summer, and if you make the effort, and you listen to the advice of the people in your community, you will become a much better writer--and a much happier writer.  It is really that simple.

    You are welcome to write “anything” on your blog, as long as it is appropriate and not hurtful or embarrassing to any person. I will also give you a number of prompts this summer to help you write in different genres, or just to give you ideas for what to write about. The golden rule for all writers is to write about what you know and what you can imagine. You are the expert of yourself!
                                                                                         

    Our first prompt this summer is to either write about your school year, or to write about your hopes for the upcoming summer. Remember that your readers are not in your head, so they need to “see” and “feel” everything you are describing, which is why your teachers always talk about the need to use the fives senses when you write: see, touch, look, smell, and hear. I would also add to always make sure your readers know the who, what, when, why, and where of every event you are describing. Just keeping these two suggestions in your head as you write (and even more so when you edit) will make your writing that much more interesting and rewarding to your readers.

    So, start writing--and call or e-mail me if you are having any problems with your summer blog.  We do have room for more people, so if you have a friend you think would like to join your community, put them in touch with me.

Thanks, and have fun!

~fitz

Projects & Procrastination

Saturday morning. First day of spring break, and I can’t sleep in.  As gloomy and rainy as the weekend looks to be, it is a chance to get started on all of the projects--big and small--that line up like jets on the tarmac waiting for clearance by some life director. My mind almost bursts with the possibilities. My only stumbling block is, as always, money, but my labor is free and I am an incredibly understanding boss to myself. I don’t hold myself accountable at the end of the day; I understand how my distracted and random approach about choosing which project to do when always works out, somehow; and, if it doesn’t, I still have a job tomorrow. 

The other boss (Denise)  is almost as understanding. She will, however, ask if she should not be around to witness the minute by minute excitement of a specific project--usually a project that starts with me walking around with a determined look while carrying a sawzall like an uzi and staring at a wall that is obviously in the way of something. Her love is manifested in phrases like: “I trust you. I just don’t want to be here to see what you are going to do.” She knows that any blueprint I have is locked in my head, and it is in a constant state of flux. My projects are more like the journey of a hardened explorer whose destination always includes the unknown. How many times have I heard, “I should have known that scraping the bottom of the boat required new brakes for the trailer and a fort made out of the neighbors discarded doors?”

My kids know that they can ask for most anything while I am short of breath and reaching into an impossible to reach spot crevice trying to loosen impossibly small bolts holding together something of unknown importance. “Can we ride our bikes down 117 without helmets and throw balls of packing styrofoam into the raging river?”

 “Yes, fine, can you get me a pair of vice grips?”

That or they will go broke later in life paying for therapy: “I am still coming to terms with how my dad had me hold up a sheet of plywood on the roof of the house on a windy fall day while he drove to Butler lumber for the right size nail...but then remembered that the truck needed an oil change.”

Or maybe they will become like me and say, “Who needs a plumber when you can google: ‘Shower pan, rotten floor, rusted clogged pipes, how to fix’?”

Even as I write this, the four boys have stealthily occupied the couch and put on an episode of “Fairly Odd Parents.” Coincidence?

Little do they know what is in store for them today. (I love this strange hiatus between soccer seasons when there is actually a Saturday that does not include seven different soccer games for seven separate kids.) I know I can bribe them to do about anything as long as it includes chocolate chip pancakes and Mango Tango juice.

I need to stop writing. There are probably very few successful project managers who are writers. Words trump action anytime.

That or coffee.

You and Your Audience

(I hope you'll forgive my sharing of the stuff I write for my students.)    

     Imagine you are cooking dinner and your stove catches on fire.  No problem, because you bought a new fire extinguisher the other day, and it's hanging on the wall right next to the stove. You grab the extinguisher and quickly read the instruction label. It reads: “My fascination with fire extinguishers began when I was a young child--early in 1963 as I recall...”  I doubt you will think to yourself, “Wow, this will be really interesting to read!”  You might rather that the instructions read: “Point extinguisher at the fire, pull the metal pin, and squeeze the black handle.” Knowing yourself, your audience,and the reason you are writing goes a long way towards defining the style, tone, and content--and ultimately the success and/or effectiveness of your writing.

      Many well-meaning teachers and schools have done a pretty good job of killing the joy of writing by neglecting the natural origin and evolution of writing.  You write a paper, hand it in, get a grade, and, more than likely, it is then buried in a sheave of other papers in the recesses of your backpack.  These written works are handed in to a machine and spit back at us with a reptilian calculus and moral detachment.  But words are meant to be heard and read, not damned with little praise or created in a vacuum. Even the greatest literary works are never finished; they are abandoned to a world where the writer hopes a willing ear will listen.  If our focus is on imperfection, how can we ever look in the mirror? John Updike  gave a lecture at my school one night.  During the question and answer period a parent rose and asked what Mr. Updike thought about how writing is taught in our schools. Mr. Updike responded with a simple and laconic: “Well, I wish there were more yes's than no's.”  The parent sat down with pursed lips and folded arms.  It was obviously not the answer he anticipated. Even the word “essay” is derived from the French word “essai'” which means, “to try.” Let  writers try, and let ourselves-like a respectful audience--listen with active minds and open hearts and offer our responses in the same spirit.

     We need to remind ourselves that writing is a conversation from the head and heart to an actual person or persons.  This is your audience! Writing is a new, interactive and exciting human adventure. As much as I love my dog, I seldom send her postcards from my travels.  Moreover, most of us don't carry on a conversation when no one is with us. My wife is an amazing writer.  (She is also refreshingly untainted by living with a writing teacher.)  “I write,” she says, “just like I talk.” This way of thinking is not a bad way to approach writing--plus, when writing, you get to rewind your conversation if you say something stupid. Good writers intuitively understand that writing should flow with the natural rhythm and unique cadence of the spoken word; they understand that rambling and disjointed writing is as unappealing as a rambling and disjointed conversation; moreover, they try with all their mind, and heart, and soul to make their written word aspire to the majesty of the most eloquent spoken word.

     The written word is always an extension of the spoken word delivered to a specific audience--an audience that you need to visualize and see what they are willing and capable of understanding  The written word is simply a new way to remember the spoken word. Novelists have taken over where the storytellers left off; newspapers and magazines have supplanted the town crier bellowing from the village square, while essayists now give lasting form and testament to the speeches and harangues that for centuries rallied the troops and urged countrymen to join a cause or crusade.  Our personal reflections and journals capture our quiet meditations and make palpable the fleeting memories of our lives. Temper the steel of your imagination; hone and craft the voice you already have, and your words will ring clear and true through the ages yet to come.

     Your voice is as real as the acorn sprouting in the waiting earth, and, as the saying goes, “No less than the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here.”

Don't Do It

(A warning to my 8th grade students)

I was eighteen and designing a production line for making stepladders at a state college--the only college I could afford, and probably the only place that would have me. I remember thinking "Hey, I'm an adult now; I can do whatever I want to do with my life--and I certainly don't want to spend my life designing a better stepladder."

But what did I want to do? Did I have the courage to even make a change in my life? If I had read The Odyssey, I might have known what to do; I might have known that I was on a heroic journey and that my call to adventure was the churning confusion in my gut, and I might have known to look for a helper and an amulet to get me over the threshold.

My helper was my English professor. I can't even recall her name, but she was old and sweet like Aunt Bee--sweet enough to ask me to stay after class to meet with her; although I was petrified she was going to have me expelled for charging five dollars to any kid in my dorm to write their English papers for them.

Instead she held a paper in her hand that I actually cared about. The day before she had told us to take a walk and write about it. Most of my classmates stayed in the dorm, laughed about how naive Aunt Bee was, and wrote some insipid scrawls that they thought would qualify as an essay--or they tried to get me to write an essay for less than five dollars. I took the walk. I wandered through the poorest streets in Fitchburgh; I sat on front steps with little kids and old men; I sat with drunks and dreamers, and I wondered. I wondered if my walk was actually real or if I was even real and then wrote some story about a kid who couldn't tell if he was awake or dreaming or even which state of mind he wanted to be live in. Aunt Bee shook this paper in my face and said bluntly, "You shouldn't be an industrial arts major. This [shaking the paper even closer to my face] is your gift!"

Never once had anyone told me I had a gift of any sort. I don't think Aunt Bee knew how ready I was for a change--any change.  I seemed to take her off guard when I responded, "Okay. So what do I do?"

"Leave this place," she answered.

So I left. Never had a decision been so easy and so hard at the same time.  It was easy because I knew in my heart that Aunt Bee was right, but it was hard because my parents thought I was throwing my life away--and I was: I threw my old life away and charted a new course into a world of words and literature--a world that I really knew nothing about.

That decision in 1976 is the reason I am writing this to you today. It has been a long and winding road, but I have never been let down by a book or hobbled by anything I wrote, even though much of what I've written is pretty dumb.

 I learned to write by writing.  I learned to write better by listening to what people thought and felt about my writing. I joined these things called writing workshops where each week each person would bring in some poem or story to share with a circle of other would be writers. I learned what worked in my writing and what didn't work. At least to the small universe of my circle. I never thought I was a good writer, and so I was never really bothered by what people said. I just thought, 'Cool. I guess I should change this...'

Even after a few workshops, I still never thought I was a writer until I one day a friend introduced me to his friend by saying, "This is Fitz. He's a writer." I protested that I was not a writer, and my friend just said, "Then what the hell else are you?"

"I don't know. An apple picker, I guess." I demurred.

"At any rate, Fitz is a better writer than he is an apple picker.  That much I'm sure," my friend said sealing the deal and sealing my fate.

Once you become a writer, you can't turn back; you can only turn away. Such is the power and allure of writing. If schools really knew what happens when a kid becomes a writer, they would ban the teaching of writing. It's like giving a ten year old the keys to a bad-ass car; it's like pointing across a canyon and screaming, "Jump!" It's like opening the window and pointing in every direction and saying, "This is all you need to know and everything you'll ever try to know."

Writing is unfettered and audacious freedom.

Don't do it.

Thinking of the Phoenix

Rising from the ashes is one of the most enduring metaphors of humanity. It is the hope of transformation that gives us the strength to crawl in the mud and squalor of a diminished life.

The animal shivers in her den with the expectation of spring, but only we have the means to create a new spring within ourselves, because only we share in the miracle of creation simply by an act of will. This is the magic of our lives: we can do and undo all that we've wrought on ourselves and others; we can pledge ourselves to each other simply by saying, "I do." We change course with an ease that is astounding--but only if we break the shackles that hold us to the beaten ground; only if we stop pushing the unwieldy regret before us.

We never fully open our eyes. We content ourselves with living in the half light between sleep and wakefulness, and in this groggy state we chew on the bones of the day. Half starved, we look to the sky and bleakly remember the story of the Phoenix. We remember that bird not for everything it did, but for the one thing it did—We must always do that one thing.

Memorable Sentences

    Most of my writing time now is spent trying to convince four classes of 8th grade boys that writing is a cool thing to do--and an even cooler thing to do well. This is tomorrow's missive...

    Memorable sentences are created out of images and actions. Words that create images are like the lumber we use in the shop to build our projects. It is the actual stuff you handle with your five senses—it’s what we feel and smell, and touch, and hold, and hear; it’s nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs. Everything else: conjunctions, prepositions, transition words, and punctuation are the glue and screws and nails that hold our sentences together. Moreover, (get the transition?) the right words help guide us to the next sentence, or lead us into the next paragraph--and so towards insight!.

    Although it is tempting to play it safe, don’t be afraid to use your whole toolbox and the whole shop when building your sentences. Don’t be afraid to use words in ways you’ve never seen before. There is nothing wrong with trying to have fun with words. It is what makes the written word a continuing miracle of creation. But make sure it helps you before you leave it in your final draft. As “they” say: “Anything worth succeeding in is worth failing in.” Success in writing is in the memory you leave behind for your reader. Memory is alive with images and actions--and so are good and effective sentences.
 

1. Show your reader what you want them to see! If you want to tell us “Freddy was sad” then paint us a sad picture of Freddy. Don’t just use the word sad. Your idea of sad is probably different than my idea of sad. My idea of sad? It’s my hollow, sunken eyes reddened by three nights worrying about how to teach a class full of cargo pants, nose rings and satanic tattoos the beauty of a language they seem bent on destroying. (Sorry, a little teacher nightmare there.)
2. Use rhetorical techniques, i.e., repetition, to help create a dynamic power (think of Martin Luther King) within your paragraphs. But don’t overdue it, unless you’re really really good at it. For instance, (another transition) unless you have studied at the feet of the masters; unless you have spent a season as a Fenn wrestler; unless you think this is working…(get the point?)
3. Go back over everything you write!!! Go back over everything you write!!! This is the fun part, if you have passion, and if you are willing to essaie (to try!). This is where you make sure everything is constructed just the way "you" want it to be constructed. 

Here’s a simple checklist. Ask yourself these questions, and see if your sentence stands tall or small:

a. Is the main idea or image clearly expressed or portrayed early in the paragraph?

b. Does every sentence say something clearly in a voice that is clearly your own?

c. Does every sentence make sense? Really! Read it out loud.

d. Is every sentence grammatically effective (oooh, notice I didn’t say correct?)

e. Is there a rhyme or reason to the order of your sentences?

f. Does every sentence have a direct road back to your topic sentence? Make sure there are no random or distracting sentences.

g. Does the last sentence restate, re-affirm or add to the main idea of the paragraph? Does it leave the reader expecting and anticipating the next paragraph?

All of writing is the crafting of sentences and then the ordering and rearranging of those sentences. A good sentence rings out like a morning bell across a quiet valley. Writing effectively is not rocket science, but it requires more than casual effort.

Make the effort!

    Most of my writing time now is spent trying to convince four classes of 8th grade boys that writing is a cool thing to do--and an even cooler thing to do well. This is tomorrow's missive...

    Memorable sentences are created out of images and actions. Words that create images are like the lumber we use in the shop to build our projects. It is the actual stuff you handle with your five senses—it’s what we feel and smell, and touch, and hold, and hear; it’s nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs. Everything else: conjunctions, prepositions, transition words, and punctuation are the glue and screws and nails that hold our sentences together. Moreover, (get the transition?) the right words help guide us to the next sentence, or lead us into the next paragraph--and so towards insight!.

    Although it is tempting to play it safe, don’t be afraid to use your whole toolbox and the whole shop when building your sentences. Don’t be afraid to use words in ways you’ve never seen before. There is nothing wrong with trying to have fun with words. It is what makes the written word a continuing miracle of creation. But make sure it helps you before you leave it in your final draft. As “they” say: “Anything worth succeeding in is worth failing in.” Success in writing is in the memory you leave behind for your reader. Memory is alive with images and actions--and so are good and effective sentences.
 

1. Show your reader what you want them to see! If you want to tell us “Freddy was sad” then paint us a sad picture of Freddy. Don’t just use the word sad. Your idea of sad is probably different than my idea of sad. My idea of sad? It’s my hollow, sunken eyes reddened by three nights worrying about how to teach a class full of cargo pants, nose rings and satanic tattoos the beauty of a language they seem bent on destroying. (Sorry, a little teacher nightmare there.)
2. Use rhetorical techniques, i.e., repetition, to help create a dynamic power (think of Martin Luther King) within your paragraphs. But don’t overdue it, unless you’re really really good at it. For instance, (another transition) unless you have studied at the feet of the masters; unless you have spent a season as a Fenn wrestler; unless you think this is working…(get the point?)
3. Go back over everything you write!!! Go back over everything you write!!! This is the fun part, if you have passion, and if you are willing to essaie (to try!). This is where you make sure everything is constructed just the way "you" want it to be constructed. 

Here’s a simple checklist. Ask yourself these questions, and see if your sentence stands tall or small:

a. Is the main idea or image clearly expressed or portrayed early in the paragraph?

b. Does every sentence say something clearly in a voice that is clearly your own?

c. Does every sentence make sense? Really! Read it out loud.

d. Is every sentence grammatically effective (oooh, notice I didn’t say correct?)

e. Is there a rhyme or reason to the order of your sentences?

f. Does every sentence have a direct road back to your topic sentence? Make sure there are no random or distracting sentences.

g. Does the last sentence restate, re-affirm or add to the main idea of the paragraph? Does it leave the reader expecting and anticipating the next paragraph?

All of writing is the crafting of sentences and then the ordering and rearranging of those sentences. A good sentence rings out like a morning bell across a quiet valley. Writing effectively is not rocket science, but it requires more than casual effort.

Make the effort!